Ignoring the impropriety of posting the guys name and number on the forum, i'm baffled by your use of the phrase "wasted £20 on a HPI check". Money VERY well spent is surely a more accurate statement, and exactly the reason why you should do one.

Wasted in the sense of if the seller had told me when I enquired to whether it had been written off/finance owned on it or simply just put it in the ad then I would have of walked straight away. Not spent £20 on finding it out the hard way.

Nobody other than a fool or a crook is going to try and sell privately a car which has outstanding finance. If it was a fool, he would have mentioned the outstanding finance in the ad, therefore he was a crook, and was trying it on. You had a lucky escape.

As for whether or not it is appropriate to put the guys name and number on this forum, that really isn't your call. You should have got in touch with the moderator first.

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=97321

Edited by badbusdriver on 31/01/2019 at 18:30

As Im sure people appreciate. He can't be selling the car as he simply doesn't own it. The finance company do. If it's now ok to sell things you don't own, maybe I can sell next doors house. That should raise some cash. Maybe I can sell Buckingham Palace next. Gum tree will be cool with it.

Yes, we all share the frustration that scammers get away with it. But you have to KNOW that someone is a scammer before naming them publicly.

In all probablility the one referred to by the OP is a scammer. But (s)he might be someone who can't keep up the HP payments and so wants to sell the car to pay off the debt. They don't advertise the fact that there is o/s finance as that might put a buyer off - or they just didn't think to give that information.

Of course it's wrong but that's the way some people think, or don't think. But they also might think of suing both the poster and the site proprietor for libel if it wasn't a deliberate scam.